because apparently i have too much free time on my hands while working on "I Can Hear the Drums"

there is no overwhelming theme here, guys, just endless Clint whump for my own sad pleasure.

Oh, this is another surprise for my editors, so please forgive the grammar. it's my fault, not theirs:)

Friends Check for Bullet Wounds

Bruce Banner wasn't sure what exactly possessed him this particular night to make the multi-floor journey down to Barton's apartment when the archer always made it clear "family time" was not his sort of thing. Pepper insisted. Sometimes that was all Bruce required to set his mind on a task, especially given his hostess had bent over backwards all day to not only run the company Tony had so graciously thrown in her lap, but also make family night a moment to remember. Granted, the actual fantasy holiday happened four nights prior. Pepper set out to get the team together with a post-move into Stark/Avenger's Tower party. Every one of the Avengers team had been absent while Tony and she enjoyed a private dinner together. Clint and Natasha found themselves in parts unknown. Steve had to report down to the SHIELD Triskelian and found himself trapped in D.C. for the last two weeks doing odd jobs all over the country. As for Bruce, he enjoyed a brief reconnect with an old colleague who flew into town for a business conference. Thor did his partying on Asgard before returning to the Tower the prior afternoon.

With the nest feeling empty, Pepper set out to fill the void. The best way to do it, was to simply try again. Hearing the team was to be in town again that evening, Pepper arranged the entire event a second time around on even shorter notice. Natasha was supposed to be back, but delayed flights kept her trapped in Atlanta. As for Barton . . .

Bruce strolled up the apartment corridor once the elevator pulled to a stop and sprung open. Clint didn't like crowds. He didn't like touchy-feely-get-togethers either. He was fine with mission briefs so long as they were that. Brief. Any other interactions Bruce managed with the reclusive archer happened either as the Hulk or around the upstairs bar. It had been a few months since the battle of New York decimated the team, and almost two since Clint took residence in the Tower at Tony's hearty insistence. Bruce never expected being buddy-buddy with any of the Avengers. After moving everyone under one roof, though, he at least anticipated seeing Barton more often. Stopping outside the agent's door, Bruce sighed.

Clint had pinned three targets to the outside, as if reminding himself which door belong to him. He lived across the hall from Steve and Natasha was practically his neighbor at just a door down on the same side. Bruce considered residing on the same floor but given his propensity for Hulking out, he decided to stay beneath the lab for now, in a vibranium lined suite that, thus far, proved effective enough to keep him contained.

He lifted a hand and rapt his knuckles on the door frame. "Clint? I saw that you're finally back. Is it all right if I come in?" Bruce asked through the entry. He didn't know the archer enough to invade his private space just yet. They were still in the feeling out stage that occurs prior to either friendship or complete disregard for one another's existence. JARVIS was the only one in the know when it came to Barton's comings and goings. The minute he reported Barton had come back that morning, Pepper was determined to get him to dinner. Now, half an hour in and Clint a no-show, it was between Steve, Bruce, Thor, Tony, or Pepper to retrieve him. Bruce just happened to pick the short straw.

"JARVIS, are you sure Clint's inside?" Bruce confided with the empty air. Tony's personalized butler system made a few tones as it considered the Tower's security footage.

"Agent Barton arrived at 9:34am and entered his quarters. He has not left." The A.I. reported.

"You wanna give talking to him another go?" Bruce asked.

"As I have reported, Agent Barton felt it necessary to deactivate my sensors in his quarters."

Bruce nodded to himself. Somehow he hoped in the last twenty minutes that changed. Clint was a spy. He didn't like being spied on, even if it was a helpful artificial intelligence. Natasha and he both set out to deactivate their rooms and go off the grid almost the instant Tony asked them to move in. The battle of New York left them somewhat homeless. Barton's one apartment in the Lower East Side took a direct hit and whatever he used to own, he did no longer. The SHIELD squints cleared him for active service after Loki's mental meltdown, but that did little to improve his overall acceptance with the remaining SHIELD crew. The likelihood of him ever being allowed to keep a room on the Helicarrier again was nil. Tony must have found him in a good state of mind when he asked Barton to move in, because for some reason the guy agreed to it.

Banner knocked a second time. "Clint?" He called in a little louder. "Hey, look, I know you don't like being bothered, but—" Bruce leaned on the door and inexplicably, it popped open. He stopped, blinked at the cracked entry way and looked left and right up the hall as if this was some magical test that he was about to fail. He wondered if Clint might have opened it himself, and just left the entry hanging for him to come in if he wanted. He slipped forward carefully and edged just inside.

"Clint?" he asked with trepidation.

The room was dark. Bruce had actually never been into the spy's place since the walls went up. Barton furnished the room himself with an old Ikea catalogue he found in an office downstairs and the internet. Tony bank rolled, only because he wouldn't have it any other way, but thinking on it again, Bruce realized even Iron Man hadn't stepped foot inside. Uncharted spy bedroom. This might get dangerous.

The room was shrouded in darkness. Only the odd ray of reflected light from the neighboring sky scrapers attempted with all their might to reach inside. Clint's floor was one of the tallest on the Tower, and the Tower itself was the tallest building in New York. Nothing around it even came close.

"Clint?" Bruce asked again, feeling along the immediate wall for a light switch. He failed to find one right off, meaning it was most likely on the hinge side of the door. Bruce carefully leaned inside, dragging one foot forward as if it may catch a trip wire.

"Did the door open?" a faint voice asked.

Bruce straightened up. At least there was a sign of life. "Sorry, yeah. I guess it didn't catch the lock when you came back. I don't mean to intrude."

"Actually, it's the first time I'm happy someone just showed up to check on me."

With that being the only invitation Bruce felt he'd ever receive, he swung the door open a little wider and allowed the hall light to illuminate a little of Clint's room. The style was different than Banner's apartment. Here a small mudroom came first, complete with checkered tile floor that lead up to a wooden coat rack. Clint's old boots were sitting by its base with the laces exploding out to either side. The rest of them were covered in red clay and grease. Just passed that came a thick white carpet runner. Not a mark was on it, beside the imprints of Clint's feet. Taking the hint, Bruce kicked his own shoes off and left them by Barton's.

"I didn't want to bother you," Bruce said, following the carpet runner up the small hallway. "But Pepper's hosting dinner in Tony's glass castle. She wanted everyone to come if they could. She called your phone a couple times, but you didn't answer." Tony's glass castle referred to the flat hanger way where he erected his bar, pool, and general bachelor pad.

The hallway spilled into a small, open kitchen which bucked up against the living room. The white carpet continued down a short step and spread out from there while the kitchen took up where the mudroom left off and was covered in the black and white checkered tiling. Bruce was surprised at the darkness of the place. The wall were either black, or eggplant. Maybe even navy blue. The appliances were a mixture of brushed steel or black. Most of them still had the new tags, stickers, or were simply left unplugged from installation. Everything smelled fresh and new. Despite being at the Tower for two months, none of it looked lived in.

"Clint?" Bruce asked, looking around in the dark.

"Couch." Clint replied.

Bruce stepped down into the living room, his feet sinking into the heavy thread of the carpet. He was surprised at the view he was slapped with the minute he turned the corner. A part of him became suddenly, very jealous.

Clint was sitting on a couch built for seven or eight people at the very least. It too was dark, like every other accent in the place. He sat up against the arm of it with his face turned to the amazing view which brought Bruce up short. Fifteen windows, collating to a ten foot glass wall, stretched the entire length of his living room, giving Clint an unparralled outlook of the New York Cityscape. This was where the few stray beams of light came from. Though as night dragged in, Clint was swamped in the shadows of it.

"Don't believe in light switches?" Bruce asked jokingly.

"Couldn't reach it." Clint replied.

That was a strange response to have. Bruce strode toward him until the archer was sitting just to his right. "You were out for a while. How was the super-secret spy the mission?"

"Fine until I woke up three hours ago and it wasn't. I wanted to call, but I couldn't reach the phone. I would have asked JARVIS to get someone, but then again—" Clint let his voice fall. Everyone knew the result of that.

Suddenly aware that something was very wrong, Bruce moved in closer. He crossed in front of the archer with his back to the windows and considered Barton's face. He seemed all right from what could be assessed in the shadows. "What do you mean by that?" Bruce asked.

Clint was sitting up in the little corner created by a depth of pillow-like couch cushions with his gaze directed toward the city beyond them. When Bruce came around, his blue eyes focused on the scientist instead. Some kind of struggle lay dormant there.

"You ever been in a fire fight?" Clint asked.

Sensing a story coming, Bruce looked around him for something to sit on. There was an old cedar chest pulled in front of the couch like an ottoman. He moved aside an empty shot glass and sat across from Clint. "A few, yes."

"As Bruce Banner?"

"Yes."

Clint nodded his chin. Until that action came, Bruce didn't realize just how taught the archer had been. His every muscle was flexed. In the unwelcome entrance of a circling spotlight, a beam of white fell onto his face. For the briefest flash, Bruce met Clint's dilated eyes. Was it fear? Was he drunk?

"I've been in plenty." Clint said. "Enough to know better. Did you ever have a friend check you after?"

Bruce shook his head. "I'm not sure what you mean." He admitted, glancing around for the bottle of alcohol which most likely accompanied the glass he'd found.

"If you shoot at someone, and that someone shoots back at you, that's what your friends are for. They check you, make sure you didn't get shot or something and you're too high on adrenaline to know it." Clint said. Bruce's wandering eyes zeroed back in like sniper scopes. The passing spotlight cycled back. In the brief light, Clint's true emotion came through. It wasn't just fear. It was utter terror. Clint swallowed a lump in his throat loud enough Bruce could hear it.

"Clint did you get shot on that mission and just now realized it?" Bruce asked, gently.

"I was so tired. I just came back. I felt something hit me, I thought it was a fist. Tasha wasn't with me. I was on my own." Clint admitted, his voice trying to escalate as panic worked its way in, but within a few seconds, Clint's voice evened again.

Bruce wanted to reach forward, place his hand on Clint's shoulder but if Clint couldn't stand crowds, personal contact was most likely off limits. "You know, that's ok, Clint. You're up, you're talking. That's good. Tony's just finished installing that med suite downstairs and I'm sure he's ready to give his x-ray unit a reason to fire up."

The next beam of light hit and Clint's eyes were closed. He inhaled and exhaled in a slow, controlled, stress coping mechanism. "I don't think I was shot." Clint admitted.

"Um, ok. Why don't you just tell me what happened, then?" Bruce tried a new tactic.

"The guy had a knife. Then he didn't. I saw the handle hit the floor. I thought it was the whole knife. At the time I did. I think sitting up was a bad idea, but I didn't know. I think it's bad." The words came out in a fast jumble. Clint moved his right hand a little, circling it to his left side, then high, where it stopped and hooked on something poking out of his flesh.

Bruce suddenly had a very bad feeling.

so, i haven't finished writing this because it really is shameless whump.

if you want more, you've got to review. flying by the seat of my pants here!